Conventional telecommunications chassis and systems associated with gateway devices typically include a host controller and multiple line cards. Highly available systems additionally include a redundant host controller. In such systems, either the primary or the redundant host controller has access to a central storage repository that stores operational code that processors in the system need for booting. After the active shelf controller boots from the central storage repository, it reads the operational code for each line card in the system and uses a communications link to download the appropriate operational code into each line card. Since the active shelf controller must read the operational code for each line card from the central repository and sequentially download this code over a serial communications link into each line card, such a process for booting processors in a system is slow. In addition, system redundancy may be compromised by using a shelf controller to mediate communication between the line cards and other shared system resources rather than allowing the line cards to directly access such resources.
In order to achieve faster boot times and increased redundancy and system availability for a multi-processor system, it would be useful if each line card in the system could independently access the central storage repository to retrieve its operational code. In addition, it would be useful if the line cards could independently access other shared system resources.